What's In a Name?
by sekdaniels
Summary: Terry Boot's little girl thinks her name is frumpy and old-fashioned until her tells her about the wonderful woman behind it.


Author's Note: Written for Semi Finals of the QLFC 5

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Beater 1

Beater 1 Prompt: BEATER 1: A fluffy story using the prompt 'Titanic (movie)'

Prompts Used: 1. cynical (emotion) and 4. Kindness (word)

Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 2839

Author's Note on content:

This is going to include some AU aspects of Helena Ravenclaw's relationships with the Bloody Baron, and love in general according to the HP Wiki page; most importantly, a modification to her implied method of death. Also, the idea that Helena finds love is not strictly canon.

I am using the ideas of a "love triangle," and the more important and impactful aspect of social pressures of status as related to the movie Titanic in this story.

No luxury liners were harmed in the making of this tale.

Beta Love: Story, Please and Fragilereality

 **What's In a Name**

 _In a time sort of like this one; at a time sort of like now…_

Terry rushed through the front door to his modest terraced house in Hardwick. Drenched to the skin just running from the car, he pressed himself, breathless, up against the back of the door and dripped.

"Is that you?" called a singsong voice from the back of the house.

"It is," Terry returned. "Any chance you could throw me a towel?"

Terry Boot's wife, Laura, emerged from the kitchen wiping her hands on a dish rag and took in the state of her husband.

"You look like a drowned rat," she said and smiled, tossing him the rag. "Just take it all off right there and I'll throw it in the wash."

Terry proceeded into the kitchen with the wet bundle. Laura met him in the doorway.

"Listen," she said, softly, "can you do me a favor?"

"Hmmm?"

"Stop by Helena's room once you've grabbed something dry, yeah? She's had a tough day at school."

"What happened?"

"Not sure. She won't talk with me about it. I was hoping she might have calmed down enough to talk with you." Laura rubbed his upper arm, now covered with goose-prickles. Terry frowned.

"There's still at least thirty minutes before dinner and I've got everything under control here," she added.

"Yeah," he said, shaking his head as if coming out of a fog. "I'll see what I can do." He reached in for a quick peck before heading off to grab some clothes and check in on his little girl.

"Knock, knock? May I come in?" Terry approached his daughter cautiously. Despite being only seven years old, Helena had a fierceness to her that was surprising.

"Go away!"

"Awww, poppet. You know we should both be downstairs helping with dinner. Why are you hiding out up here?"

"I don't wanna! GO! AWAY!"

"Hey, hey, hey," he said as he quickly crossed to her bed and pulled back the covers from the lump in the corner. "No, Helena. You know that you can't speak to me like that." He moved in closer and saw she'd been crying.

"Pop-pet." He slid himself over to her and gathered here up into his arms, "Tell me! Tell me, what's going on with you?"

The seven year old bundle of blond curls sank down into her father's arms and sighed heavily. Terry was grateful that she wasn't fussing about being too old to be held. At least not yet.

"It's my name, Daddy," she pouted. "I HATE it!"

She flopped her head down into his chest and Terry let out a gasp of air. Little or not, his daughter had a hard head, and, as well he knew, in more ways that one.

"Helena, why? It's a beautiful name."

"Smelly Nelly," she sniffled.

"Did someone call you that?" he prodded.

"Yesh," she ground out, her face still muffled in the soft cotton of his old sweatshirt.

"I'm sorry, love," he whispered.

"Why did you give me this name? Why couldn't I be something normal like Emily or Jennifer?" she cried.

Terry peeled her away from his chest so he could look at her face. "Oh, my darling. Helena is a lovely name. A beautiful name." He wiped her tears away from beneath her eyes. "It's a name that's been in our family for a very long time."

Helena sniffled and wiped at her nose as the tears started to dry. "How long?"

"Hundreds of years," Terry whispered to her, watching as her eyes got large. She was always so curious.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes, my dear. It is a name that we cherish," he said, caressing her cheek and winking, "like I cherish you."

"Why, Daddy? Why has it been in the family for so long?"

Terry smiled at her. He hoped that dinner would stay warm.

"It all started a long time ago at Hogwarts," he started.

"I'm going to go there when I'm older, aren't I?" Helena jumped in, pride glowing in her eyes.

"I believe you might," he answered, "but not just yet. When will you go?"

"In four years. When my owl comes."

"Right. Now, may I continue?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She settled back in and nodded.

"A long time ago, at Hogwarts, not long after it had been founded, there was a young, talented witch there attending school. Helena Ravenclaw was the daughter of one of the four founders and was one of the first students to be trained at the school."

Terry gave a pause. While his wife was a Muggle, his magic was no secret in their home; nor was his own affiliation with Ravenclaw House. He waited to see if his precocious girl would ask about it, but, at the moment, she did not stir. He continued.

"This young girl was talented, but she was also kind. And while she didn't have many friends, she was polite and friendly with all those around her, and especially loyal to the people she cared about.

Now, you have to remember that Hogwarts was built a very long time ago. Over a thousand years ago! Life was very different then."

"A thousand years?" Helena said with wonder in her voice.

"Yes, my dear. It's magic is older than almost anything else you will encounter in your lifetime.

But don't distract me. The reason I mention it is because I need you to understand that love was not the same back then—"

"What?!" Helena bolted up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that people did not fall in love back then; or even if they did, it rarely meant they would be able to be together."

"Why? How could that happen?" The poor girl seemed distraught. Terry could not help but smile at her. Helena had already felt the acute pangs of love in her few years at grammar school; she seemed to have a new crush at school every other week. She was so generous of heart that she could not even fathom not being allowed to share her loving kindness with others.

"You must understand, Helena; marriage was more of a business transaction in those days. The right marriage could ensure that your family had more land for farming or better connections with merchants for trade. It was very much about the whole family, not just two people caring for each other. Does that make sense?"

"No!" She seemed more upset, butTerry pressed on.

"Good thing it isn't like that any more," he said sweetly. "You'll never have to worry about that."

"But did this happen to the other Helena? Did she?"

"Yes, I'm afraid she did. Her mother founded Ravenclaw House and was very powerful in her own right, so an alliance through marriage would have been an extremely attractive prospect to many Wizarding families. Not the least of which was one of the other founders, Salazar Slytherin.

Now, what you have to understand about Slytherin is that he wasn't a big fan of people from non-magical families."

"Huh? What's that mean?"

Terry frowned a bit and thought of how to explain this delicately. Helena was so lucky to have been born after the war; her childhood had not been tainted by pureblooded prejudice. He didn't want to open that can of worms.

"It's hard to explain." He hesitated. "Let's just say that not everyone who has magical abilities wants to be friends with people who don't have them."

"That's stupid!"

"I agree, but some people really _did_ feel that way back then," he said. It was better to keep it simple; for now. "Should I go on?" he asked, gently. He could feel her little body vibrating with tension. She had such a strong sense of justice for one so young.

After a moment, Helena spoke. "Are you going to tell me that this Helena never loved anyone? I don't want to hear it." She crossed her arms over her chest, sticking a bony elbow into his ribs.

"Well, now, _that_ is where it gets interesting," he prodded gently. From the corner of his eye, he caught the outline of his wife's silhouette at the door. She slowly backed away without a word. Evidently, dinner would keep.

He continued in the silence.

"Somewhere in the course of Helena's studies, she met a young man her own age. A Walter Shoemaker. He was in the same House and they were both exceptionally talented' he was also Muggle-born. They were often paired together because they had similar working styles and seemed to get along well.

Now, you must remember, this would have been really weird, even at Hogwarts; boys were encouraged to work with other boys and girls with girls."

"What?! But why?" she inevitably asked.

"Remember what I said about things being quite a bit different in this time? It was _very_ long ago…"

"Hmmm...well, okay. So people didn't like for boys and girls to play together?" she asked. Her innocence was so profound, sometimes; Terry often forgot that his skeptical girl was still only seven.

 _As true a Ravenclaw if ever there was one._ "It was important, back then, that boys and girls were encouraged to be separate, yes," he answered, shrewdly. He had to tread carefully, or he might end up having another conversation he was most definitely _not_ prepared for.

"That's weird."

"Well, maybe it was. We don't do it like that anymore."

She shrugged. Terry plowed on.

"As time went on, Helena and Walter grew close. Closer than might've been acceptable. And it did not go unnoticed.

So, one day, she was summoned to the office of her Head of House, who also, remember, was her mother."

"Uh, oh," Helena said.

"Right," Terry agreed, giving her a little squeeze. "When she arrived, she was informed that an arrangement had been made for her marriage. To a man with ties to Salazar Slytherin himself; one Ioan Sayre."

"Hold on," Helena demanded, pressing herself back away from her father's embrace so she could look into his eyes. determination painted on her small features. "Her mother told her who to marry?!" She's still in school!"

Terry could not help but smile and draw her back into a great big hug. "My independent woman," he murmured, happily. "Yes. Yes, things were _very_ different back then."

"Well, that's not gonna happen to me!"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Good." She settled back down and got comfortable again. "So, what happened to her? I mean, Helena? Didn't she love Walter?"

"She did," Terry said, quietly. "And maybe she didn't realize it until then; until she found out about her mother's plans."

"So she was sad."

"She was very much like you, sweetheart. She was determined." His daughter shot him a mischievous look and he laughed.

"Our Helena went back to the Ravenclaw dormitory and told Walter everything!"

"She told him that she _loved_ him?"

"Well, maybe not _that_ part," Terry admitted. "She told him she was to be married in two years, once Ioan was done at school. He was a year behind her so she would have to wait.

"And, she told him that she had other fears about the arrangement. That, perhaps, her mother's motivations for the match would be detrimental to the future of Hogwarts."

"How, Daddy?"

"Helena was afraid that her match to Ioan would bring her mother more tightly in-line with Salazar Slytherin's way of thinking. About non-magical people."

"You mean Muggles, right?" she asked with a smirk.

"Right, baby. Muggles."

"So, Slytherin didn't like Muggles?"

"No, he didn't. And he wanted to keep them out of the school."

"But wait! That's not fair. How would they learn to use their magic?"

"How indeed, little one," Terry answered.

Helena was not impressed. " _Dad_!"

"Let me tell you, then. Shush.

"She told Walter that she thought her marriage could be the beginning of an alliance that would tip the scales against Muggles being allowed at Hogwarts. Now, you must understand, in the early years of the school, it was still being decided how and who and what to teach. Many changes were being made all the time; and one of the arguments that continued to rage was about so-called pure-bloods vs. Muggle-born witches and wizards."

He heard a small _harumph_ from his daughter, but got no further interruptions, so he continued.

"To Helena Ravenclaw's mind, Helga Hufflepuff was more likely to seek peace than side with the founder of the Gryffindor House against a Slytherin-Ravenclaw alliance. Walter immediately saw that it would result in the expulsion of his own kind.

"Helena could only agree with him, sadly, and when he asked her what she would do, she told him that she would not marry.

"This was not an easy thing to do, my dear; once a marriage pact was made, it was very hard to get out of it without...problems."

"What kind of problems?" she asked.

"Problems for the family; loss of trust in their word. That sort of thing." Terry watched as his daughter tried to process the information. He wondered how much of it made any sense.

After a long silence, she asked, "What did they do?"

"Well, when they left Hogwarts, they had a year. And they already knew they were in love, so they spent that year together, traveling and seeing the world, and living a lifetime in the time they had. They were happy.

"And after a year, Ioan came looking for her, intent on bringing Helena back to marry, but it did not happen, just as she'd promised.

"She and Walter were out in a rowboat, floating on a lake when Ioan arrived. There was a struggle and Helena threw herself into the water, taking Ioan with her. She drowned."

"Daddy? Oh, no, Daddy, no…why did you tell me this? Why?"

"My love," Terry said, squeezing her tight. "Don't you see? She was a hero! She gave everything to protect people like _you_ and _me_!"

"But I'm not a Muggle. I have magic!"

"But you are Muggle-born, sweetheart. Your mother does not have magic. If Helena Ravenclaw had not succeeded in her quest to avoid the marriage pact with Slytherin, you might not have been allowed to attend Hogwarts at all. And neither would I."

He let that sit out there for several minutes all the while wondering if he'd gone about this the wrong way.

"Daddy?" Helena quietly spoke, at last.

"Yes, love?"

"I'm really hungry."

"Me, too. Should we go eat?"

"Yeah. Let's."

Terry peeled himself away from his little girl with some trepidation. He had no idea where her head was at, and he sometimes forgot, because she was so mature for her age, that she still was just a child. He followed her, lost in his own thoughts, down the stairs to the growl of his own stomach.

"Everything all right?" his wife asked. Terry noticed the clock. They were over an hour later getting started than they would normally be. He grimaced, but Laura looked more concerned than anything.

"I think so," he answered, looking over at Helena who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

Dinner went along quietly and the evening routine took over, but as Terry passed Helena's bedroom door later that night, he heard a whisper.

"Daddy?" she called. "Daddy, come here."

"What are you still doing up, love?

"You didn't tell me what happened to Walter. And I can't stop thinking about him."

Terry could have cried. It was the most important part of the story.

"Well, eventually, after many years Walter moved on and fell in love with someone else, and had a family of his own; but he never forgot Helena. So that when he had a daughter, he named her after the woman he came to love and respect for her unending kindness. Helena Ravenclaw."

Even in the dark, Terry could practically see her face screw up the way it would when she was thinking something over.

"So, Walter is related to us? She asked, finally.

"Yes, my love. Somewhere along the way, many generations after Walter was dead himself, his family decided to change their name to something shorter and more manageable.

They choose Boot."

"So I'm, like, his great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter?" she exclaimed, sitting up in bed.

"Something like that. And one of many wonderful, caring, brilliant Helenas in our family." Terry leaned down and kissed her forehead. "No matter what names anyone calls you, know this sweetheart—you are named after a brave woman who gave her life to protect those she loved!"

 _Four years later..._

That first night in the first year Ravenclaw dormitory, Helena Boot woke with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She opened her eyes to see a figure, shimmering, at the end of her bed. The woman spoke not a word, but only looked kindly upon the girl and smiled. Then, she was gone, and Helena knew that everything her father had told her years before was all true.


End file.
